Emerging medications and pharmacological treatment approaches for substance use disorders.
Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior March 1, 2025 Joel S Raymond, Alexander G Athanasopoulos, Connie J Badolato et al. 7 citations
Medications for substance use disorders are limited, especially for stimulants and cannabis, due to addiction's biological complexity, regulatory hurdles, and pharmaceutical industry disinterest. The opioid crisis has spurred urgent efforts to find new treatments. Several neurobiological systems newly implicated in drug reward offer novel medication targets. This review covers ongoing clinical trials and authors' research on psychedelics targeting serotonin 2A receptors, glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists, cannabidiol, dynorphin/kappa opioid receptor, orexin/hypocretin, and oxytocin receptor systems, plus agonist therapies for stimulant use disorders. These innovations suggest an improved therapeutic landscape is near.